MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL: THE LOCKOUT AFTERMATH : Anatomy of a Compromise : Behind the scenes: With progress on arbitration seemingly hopeless, a brainstorm sweeps away last barrier.

“It sprung forth as if from Zeus’ head,” Deputy Commissioner Steve Greenberg said Monday of the concept that led to a compromise on the pivotal issue of arbitration eligibility and a Sunday night settlement in baseball’s collective bargaining negotiations.

Zeus? Another myth.

The concept was there all along. It had been hinted at in previous bargaining sessions, in fact, but at those times the union and management were still locked into what seemed to be their face-saving positions, the union demanding a full rollback to two years and management wanting to keep the requirement for arbitration at three years.

When they finally compromised at about 9 Sunday night, with the union facing internal problems from players who didn’t think arbitration was worth the fight and the owners facing a serious financial loss through extensive cancellation of regular-season games, both sides were looking for the least painful way to swallow pride.

They started the process at 12:30 p.m. EST in Commissioner Fay Vincent’s Park Ave. office. Arbitration was basically the only item on the agenda. The Thursday proposal that the owners had described as a deal maker resolved virtually everything else.

And it had become apparent Saturday that an arbitration agreement was also possible. Charles O’Connor, general counsel of the owners’ Player Relations Committee, hinted that the owners were ready to compromise when he acknowledged that the union had a legitimate right to raise the issue of manipulation, a claim that younger players had been arbitrarily held down in the minors by their parent clubs to delay their arbitration qualification.

The alleged manipulations were placed on the table Sunday, but, according to Greenberg, it was impossible to develop a system that isolated club behavior, identified victims and created a mechanism that translated their service time into arbitration.

There was a break for lunch, and the union, having recently suggested that 50% of players with more than two but less than three years of major league credit receive arbitration based on service ranking, came back, Greenberg said, with a proposal that would make 25% of those players eligible for arbitration in 1990 and established an escalating scale over the rest of the contract, with 40% of those players eligible in 1993.

The owners’ Player Relations Committee--Bud Selig of Milwaukee, Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox, Carl Pohlad of Minnesota, Fred Wilpon of the New York Mets, John McMullen of Houston and Fred Kuhlmann of St. Louis--caucused for almost four hours.

Don Fehr, the union’s executive director, and his brother, Steve, took the opportunity to walk around Manhattan.

When the talks finally resumed, the PRC made its first counter proposal on the two-three issue, saying it was willing to make 10% of that class eligible for arbitration. After that, it was a matter of give and take. The union went to 20%, the owners to 12%, and they ultimately agreed on 17%, with the additional provision that the eligible player had to have spent 86 days of the previous season in the majors.

Greenberg said that the 86-day provision was an attempt to weed out journeyman players who might have spent most of their careers in the minors but built up two years of major league service through periodic recalls.

Much of the final bargaining was done between trusted acquaintances Fehr and Greenberg, a former player agent. The final formula would have made 14 of the 83 players in this year’s two-three class eligible for arbitration.

Was it worth the fight?

“Certainly,” Fehr said. “If the union is going to do its job, the players have to support each other--even if it’s only for a few people in a small category.”

Gene Orza, the union’s associate general counsel, called it an accommodation for a group of young players who contribute to the success of their team and industry but have been deprived of the ability to share comparably in its prosperity.

Said one owner: “The bottom line is that the basic requirement is still three years, and in the next negotiations we’ll be talking about a revenue-sharing system again and a procedure that will change arbitration altogether.”

The arbitration agreement did not send Fehr and O’Connor home. In 1985, after a two-day mid-season strike, the sides hurriedly put together a settlement memorandum. When the time came to type it, they couldn’t agree on what it was they had agreed on. Thus, the document was never signed.

This time, they attended to all the necessary details and made it a signed agreement at about 6 a.m. Monday morning.